Blog # 4, Week 7

In summary of last weeks chat I felt that we are all understanding the importance of the design of our learning courses. I feel that we are all starting to understand the difference between the positivist and the constructivist paradigms, and it seems that we all lean toward the constructivist. We covered the difference between an instructor/facilitator and the actual designer. Dr. Ge stated that even as instructors we could learn to design a great class. We discussed the importance for the instructor to be a good coach, esp. in the constructivist paradigm and the importance of evaluating the learner’s ability. We got off course a little but can say that even that was very helpful. Dr. Ge assisted the students in discussing the class project and I believe we have a little better understanding of what will be expected of us. Overall I felt that it was well worth the hour or so we spent online.

As far as what I have learned so far, it is amazing. I never knew so much went into designing a successful online course. It gives new meanings to the things that I have had to do in past online courses, they were not just things to keep the learner busy, and they were designed to promote interaction and deeper learning. I am by history a student that can chew things up and spit them out in order to receive a good grade, this class has made me stop and think about the way I have learned in the past and has also caused me to really think about the way I plan to teach in the future. I have learned the difference between a community and an online community. Both are groups of people that interact to build knowledge learn and shape their respective community, but the virtual community’s area dispersed geographical and interact using the Internet. I learned that the importance of building and designing a virtual community that is successful is not always an easy task. It requires communication between the learners and the leaders, knowing your audience, having specific goals and objectives that is communicated to the members, leadership is very important as well as interface design, the class must be user friendly and technical support must be available. I have determined the difference between content and context. I think the thing that has surprised me the most about the things I have learned through this course is the difference in the paradigms of teaching and learning. The constructivist and the positivist differ in many ways, but what I think is the main difference is the delivery of information. In a constructivist paradigm the instructor’s role is to develop strategies which will support the students understanding, as well as the learners role is to construct meaning from the information. The constructivist calls for assignments that require problem solving and critical thinking, not just memory or reproduction. I have also learned the difference between virtual and reasoning space, and the importance of the instructor or designer to engage learners in activities that use analysis, debate, criticism, and by using discussions, and team projects. I have also learned a whole new vocabulary throughout this course.

I have learned through my readings the importance of social interaction, in making a successful online class. Social interaction includes: involving dialogue, discussion and sharing of ideas in a way that constructs learning as a social process. By creating a safe environment students will overcome shyness, and begin sharing their ideas with others in the course, it is important for the instructor to value students and the little contributions that they make and affirm them as a person. It is also important for lectures to be carefully thought through their planning for learning. The readings all seem to point to a constructivist paradigm, from story telling, to allowing students to be in charge of their own lecture. The common themes include involving the students in communication, whether it is, discussion boards, online chats, or web blogs. They also stress the importance of the instructor being skilled in promoting the discussion and debate.

Blog #3, Week 5

I hope the old saying that goes, “better late, than never” will apply here, between some technical difficult with my internet connection and some family health problems I am very late with this blog. Please forgive me.

Question 1
One way to facilitate successful online collaborative learning is to consider the type and complexity of the task and to develop appropriate guidance and strategies. How would you go about doing this?

First you must decide which types of tasks the students are taking on.

If you are trying to provide guidelines for online discussions, the instructor must prompt the students to ask questions, provide explanations, make clarifications, and negotiate meanings, share experience, make inferences, and justifications. By doing this you will prompt students to think critically and direct attentions to important issues. It also encourages active interactions. I feel that through this class this is done both by the weekly discussions and the blogging. I will admit it is much more difficult to try and think of thought provoking questions myself.

If your goal is to provide guidelines for problem-solving tasks you must guide students to engage in cognitive processes such as representing the problem, developing solutions, constructing arguments, and monitoring and evaluations. An example that I have been involved in another class, is the making of teaching guides for the Ayore’ Indians from Bolivia, the instructor presented the class with a problem and we as a class, divided ourselves up into different sections and attacked the problem. We have all posted by way of message board and have collaborated together even though we have never seen each other face to face.

If your goal is guidelines for decisions-making tasks, you should direct students’ interactions in areas of negotiation meaning, reaching consensus, and making justifications.


Question 2

Chapter 10, talks about the Internet being built around key technology design features. What are these, what do they do and what types of approaches will be popular and meaningful for students?

Key technology design features include robustness, decentralization, and open communication. Robustness means that the internet was designed and distributed that could survive attack, failure, or sabotage of any particular part and still function as a meaningful communication system. IT also means that you have the ability to communicate from different locations, using different devices. In terms of decentralization, it means that there are many different connections with no single one being more important than any other. I find this very interesting in the fact that if one system is down, then the information will just find another route. The fact that the internet is an open system means that no one owns or controls it. I had never thought of who owns the internet before, I thought it profound when the author compared the internet to a living organism. Open communication means that the internet is open to the flow of material.

I agree with the author of this chapter in the fact he states that e-learning should always be constructivist in approach. I believe that learning is a collaborative event and should be shared between the instructor, student and peers.